No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Azul Zing vs IBM WebSphere Application Server comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 5, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azul Zing
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
11th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
AI Customer Experience Personalization (24th)
IBM WebSphere Application S...
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Azul Zing is 2.8%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM WebSphere Application Server is 4.6%, down from 8.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM WebSphere Application Server4.6%
Azul Zing2.8%
Other92.6%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Mohakhan Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Technical Expert at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real-time charging has stayed consistent and cuts GC incidents while reducing cloud costs
The best features Azul Zing offers include no stop-the-world during the full GC. No stop-the-world pauses during full GC, and we hit higher TPS with fewer JVMs -- a real win for maintenance and cost. As an online charging system, we can't afford crashes or latency spikes. Before Zing, JVMs would hang and drop from the grid on missed heartbeats. GC tuning is also out-of-the-box -- no more time consuming manual tuning like with Oracle/OpenJDK with no significant outcome.
CF
Senior Manager, MW & DB Automation at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has worked seamlessly in complex clustered environments and supports long-term development efforts
IBM WebSphere Application Server is currently at version 9.0.5.23. In recent months, they released fix 23, as they periodically release fixes. Previously, they frequently increased versions, but now they maintain 9.0.5 with different releases. It's based on Java J2EE 7 and Java SDK 1.8. Oracle announced that 2030 will be the last year when Java SDK 1.8 will be supported. Oracle currently deploys Java 2.x in parallel, with the latest being version 25. The future of IBM WebSphere Application Server remains uncertain since it's based on Java 1.8 and Java 7. I haven't found any white papers or official documentation from IBM outlining their trajectory post-2030.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Zing has completely solved the garbage collection problem for us."
"With minimal effort, Zing has helped us improve our latency performance drastically."
"The non-stop garbage collector (C4 - Continuously Concurrent Compacting Collector) is the most valuable feature."
"With minimal effort, Zing has helped us improve our latency performance dramatically."
"No other JVM on the market even comes close to competing with the Azul Zing."
"Performance of the JVM, especially the C4 Pauseless Garbage Collection, for continuous application execution is the most valuable feature."
"With minimal effort, Zing has helped us improve our latency performance dramatically."
"With Zing, we've now been able to re-allocate those tuning resources to general product development."
"The VPN service is quite useful."
"This solution is very good in terms of stability."
"WebSphere Application Server is very stable."
"One of the most valuable features might be the stability of the IBM WebSphere Application Server."
"WebSphere Application Server's best features include the data subscription and connection viewer."
"The integration between IBM tools and applications is very well executed, and the support from IBM is quite good, providing a solid support structure."
"IBM WAS is extremely scalable. It is easy to add additional servers and to divide the load over servers in all kinds of ways."
"The performance is good."
 

Cons

"It is extremely expensive."
"However, like every other great product, there is always something that can be improved."
"We have encounter stability issues and that has been a source of frustration at times."
"The licensing over non-production environments considerably affects the cost of our solution as a software vendor."
"Although Azul claims to have a fast warmup, we still experience higher latency for the first trade when our system starts up on Sundays."
"The profiling tools included with Zing lag behind those available for Oracle's Java implementation."
"Although Azul claims to have a fast warmup, we still experience higher latency for the first trade when our system starts up on Sundays."
"I think IBM WebSphere Application Server is a dead solution and will probably fade out."
"What could be improved in IBM WebSphere Application Server is its interconnection with other products, for example, Kafka. What I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is a better graphical user interface."
"I would note that the response time is something IBM's support team needs to improve."
"I think in some moments, the security was a little bit more complex to configure when it was delegated to other systems, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The current trend is to move to Liberty because of the portability of its cloud and its Kubernetes, which containerize the application."
"Installing or configuring a WAS server instance as a Windows Service causes a lot of problems, especially when the server needs credentials to stop."
"WebSphere Application Server doesn't have an automated deployment option, forcing us to use third-party tools like Jenkins UCD and Palo Automated Deployment."
"As the license cost is quite expensive, I'm rating it two out of five."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"My company is on a perpetual or permanent license agreement with IBM WebSphere Application Server. There's also a pay-per-use option, but customers rarely choose that option. Most of the customers are on the perpetual license deal that's all-inclusive. As the license cost is quite expensive, I'm rating it two out of five."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free."
"There is an Eclipse Plugin provided by IBM, so no need to buy IBM Rational Application Developer or Rational Software Architect tools."
"It's expensive."
"If your application is just a web app that does not need to scale big, you can obtain a single core license of WAS Express edition, which has almost the same features with limited processing cores. If you manage a very big application farm (i.e. need to run 10 or more WAS servers) it is better to get IBM WAS Hypervisor Edition."
"The licensing policy is based on the PVU base."
"The price of this product is higher than that of competitors."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Infrastructure solutions are best for your needs.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azul Zing?
Setup cost isn't significant, the documentation is clear and straightforward, and licensing is simple. I'm not directly involved in pricing negotiations, but given we run it across many production ...
What needs improvement with Azul Zing?
Nothing major, but one nuance: Zing auto-adjusts internal config based on available CPUs, which can cause brief CPU spikes every few minutes. These are harmless, but can give ops/monitoring teams a...
What is your primary use case for Azul Zing?
We run a large in-memory data grid to store millions of customers -- clusters of up to 30-40 JVMs, each with ~90GB heap, deployed across a variety of infrastructure including Azure, AWS, and on-pre...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
At Royal Bank, which is a major IBM customer with mainframes and numerous IBM products, they have a specific agreement regarding pricing. The pricing structure for large enterprise customers differ...
What needs improvement with IBM WebSphere Application Server?
IBM WebSphere Application Server is currently at version 9.0.5.23. In recent months, they released fix 23, as they periodically release fixes. Previously, they frequently increased versions, but no...
What is your primary use case for IBM WebSphere Application Server?
I was part of an application where I integrated IBM WebSphere Application Server with Node.js and Blue Prism. I did a lot of REST applications because at my core, I'm a developer. Currently, I'm an...
 

Also Known As

No data available
WebSphere Application Server
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Priceline, RBS, Credit Suisse, ING, Creditex, Nielsen, Workday, Saks Fifth Avenue, Entergy, Quotix, Puma and many more.  Visit azul.com for more.
TalkTalk, Property management group, E.SUN Bank, Ohio National Financial Services, Aviarc, Cincom Systems, FJA-US, D+H, Staples, Michigan Municipal League
Find out what your peers are saying about Azul Zing vs. IBM WebSphere Application Server and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.